A Web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. Text and images on a Web page can contain hyperlinks to other Web pages at the same or different website. Web browsers allow a user to quickly and easily access information provided on many Web pages at many websites by traversing these links. Web browsers format HTML information for display, so the appearance of a Web page may differ between browsers. Web browsers communicate with Web servers primarily using HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) to retrieve webpages. A web server is a computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects (images, etc.).
A Web page or web page is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. Web pages may be retrieved from a local computer or from a remote web server. The web server may restrict access only to a private network, e.g. a corporate intranet, or it may publish pages on the World Wide Web. Web pages are requested and served from web servers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). A web page is a type of web document. Web pages may consist of files of static text stored within the web server's file system (static web pages), or the web server may construct the (X)HTML for each web page when it is requested by a browser (dynamic web pages). Client-side scripting can make web pages more responsive to user input once in the client browser.
With the constant emergence of new website content display technologies, not all web browsers are able to render their content as originally intended by the web site's author. Many web browsers rely on plugins to display web content properly. Consequently, a user's visual representation of web site between one browser and another can look very different depending on what that browser has the capability to render. A common phrase seen on some web sites is the phrase “this content is best viewed in Internet Explorer”.
As an example, the United States Patent and Trademark Office website (www.uspto.gov) displays images of patents. However, not all web browsers can adequately display these patent images. Therefore for a user to access the patent office web site and view the display images of the patents a user would need to be aware of the browser that the can best display the patent images. The user would need to access the website through the browser that best displays these pages.
The need to continually track the display capabilities of a web browser with regard to displaying particular web pages can be a source of frustration for the user. This present a level of frustration to the user. Having to keep switching web browsers and remembering which site looks and works best in which browser needs to be addressed. Furthermore, many web designers know the best web browser to display their particular web site or web page. There remains a need for method and system that can identify a preferred web browser for display of a web browser based on information contained in the actual web page that is to be displayed.